Engage and Promote in the Digital Ecosystem

Shama Hyder, CEO of the Marketing Zen Group and speaker at ASAE's 2017 Membership, Marketing, & Communications Conference, discusses how to get your content to rise above the clutter.

Marketing in today’s digital age has become increasingly complex. But it doesn’t have to be, according to Shama Hyder, CEO of the Marketing Zen Group.

“Success lies in stepping above the clutter and understanding the new principles of digital marketing,” she says.

In her latest book, Momentum, Hyder—who was an opening keynoter at the ASAE Marketing, Membership & Communications Conference—shares five principles that will help professionals not only market successfully but also grow their brands and organizations.

Agility through analytics. This means having no sacred cows in your organization and really being data-driven. ”You want to make decisions based on the data that is available to you,” she says.

Customer focus. “This is really about changing your entire strategy to understand the big shift that has happened with brands today,” Hyder says. While companies used to ask what their brands said about them, today they must ask this: “What does doing business with us allow our customers to say about their personal brands?”

Integration. When you successfully blend the physical and the digital, you give your members seamless experience. For example, Hyder points to an app by retail chain Sephora that allows people to “try on” lipstick by merely swiping right. If a customer likes a lipstick, she can save it in her cart and then walk into the store to test it out.

Content curation. “We’ve gone from a society that’s been predominantly content hungry to now being overwhelmed with all this content,” she says. While content marketing is important, it’s even more important to filter content for your audience and turn it into actionable insights.

Cross-pollination. In today’s marketing ecosystem, you shouldn’t see silos anymore. “You’re able to see opportunities where they didn’t maybe exist before in your mind,” she says.

[This article was originally published in the Associations Now print edition, titled "Above the Clutter."]